The left hand of scholarship: computer experiments with recorded text as a communication media

Abstract

To paint a broad though much simplified picture, let us suppose at the outset that scholarship begins with the collection of facts. These facts are of two distinct kinds. The first are observations and they consist, for example, of the results of controlled experiments or observations for field work in the case of science or, perhaps, they are derived from the study of historical documents in the case of history, and so on. The second kind of facts are the reported observations, descriptions of phenomena or events, or the theories provided by contemporary scholars. In aggregate, let us refer to the first kind of facts as "data" and the second as "information." From the confluence of these two kinds of facts in the mind of the scholar, new descriptions and theories are born. When he makes these public, then new information is generated.